


Bright Lights and Cityscapes

by kaeorin



Series: Stark Tower: Avengers Drabbles [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Fireworks, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Stark Tower, Summer, Summer Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 09:41:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15167906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaeorin/pseuds/kaeorin
Summary: “There’s this saying we have, and maybe you’ve already heard it, but it goes something like ‘When he kissed me, I saw fireworks’.” You spoke before you’d really made the decision to do so, but...well, now you might as well go with it. “People use it to talk about...a really nice kiss. A good one.”“And did you? See fireworks?”





	Bright Lights and Cityscapes

None of the other inhabitants of Stark Tower, as a general rule, particularly cared for fireworks. They’d all spent too much time on actual battlefields, surrounded by gunfire and explosions that aim to take their lives. There was just no fun in it for them, and you couldn’t blame them.

Steve and Bucky were about the only two people who could stand anyone else’s presence on these nights, and even then it was always just the two of them. They would close themselves in one of their rooms together, and you had to imagine that they sat in grim silence, trying not to think about the lives they’d lost. Your heart always broke for them, not that they’d ever allow you to mention it to their faces. After your first year in the tower, you decided to channel all your love into a ridiculous belated birthday bash for Steve every weekend after the fourth. Among all of the other injustices in his long life, one of the greatest had to be that he couldn’t even enjoy his birthday.

Tony did what Tony always did: he hid in his lab. It took you two years to even realize what he was doing, why he never wanted to come to the roof with you to watch the fireworks. After you figured it out, everything made sense again. The lab his was safe place, where he could take control of what happened and what was created. Even if something did go wrong down there, he at least knew that it was controlled—FRIDAY or one of his robots could always put a stop to it. The same couldn’t be said for the roof. The same couldn’t be said for the world.

Every once in a while, Bruce managed to join you—for a while, anyway. You were never quite sure if he was trying to prove to himself that he could or if he was doing his best to ignore his body’s reaction for as long as he could, but he always ended up slinking away, with some amount of urgency in his steps, long before the finale.

Natasha just disappeared every year. She’d never said a word about it, and she’d never had to gently turn you down, because she was always gone long before sunset. You knew that, if you were to go knock on her bedroom door, she wouldn’t answer. Hell, she might not even be in the tower anymore. Clint always took out his hearing aids, took a sleeping pill, and called it a night shortly after dinner. You knew that because he told you. He was maybe the only one in the tower who wasn’t shy about it, and you could appreciate that. Tonight, you had reason to believe that Wanda borrowed a pill from Clint in hopes of doing the same thing, though you can only hope that the medication kicked in faster for her. Vision followed quietly behind her. He probably didn’t have anything against fireworks, but you couldn’t blame him for wanting to keep watch. 

So you were alone tonight, just like all the other Fourths you’d spent in the tower, and that was fine. When you got to the roof after dinner, there was a big wooden Adirondack-style chair waiting for you, with a soft blanket folded neatly on the seat and a fully-stocked cooler sitting beside it. Tony. Of course. You made a mental note to bring him breakfast in the morning, and then settled into the chair to wait for darkness to fall.

It was always a little unnerving, sitting on the roof of the tower. The building rose high above the buildings that surrounded it, and sometimes a nasty wind could whip through, but tonight things were calm enough. You didn’t really need the blanket, but you wrapped it lightly around your shoulders anyway. You sipped from a bottle of beer as you stared out at the horizon, watching lights begin to twinkle on in the buildings around you. 

Every once in a while, you could hear a honk from traffic down below or a faint crack from store-bought fireworks, but for the most part, it was peaceful. You tipped your head back against the back of the chair so you could look at the sky. There was far too much light pollution for you to have any hope of seeing the stars, you knew, but you watched the sky fade from a bright, clear blue into a rich navy, and then, eventually, to black. 

Behind you, someone pushed open the door—a little rougher than they really should have. You smiled to yourself. Loki had been doing better about not sneaking around you, you’d noticed—maybe he’d finally gotten sick of startling you and then getting snapped at. Sure enough, you heard his odd footsteps approaching—he was planting his feet just a little more solidly than he really needed to.

“Isn’t it beautiful out?” You didn’t need to look over at him, so you didn’t. He didn’t really respond, except to give you a soft, noncommittal noise. Maybe nights in Asgard were always like this, or even more beautiful than this. Whatever. If living here on Earth meant that you were able to enjoy nights like this without comparing them to that faraway kingdom, then so be it. You didn’t lift your head from the back of the chair, but you did turn your face towards him. He was looking up at the sky, with a soft expression on his face.

He didn’t have a lot of moments like this—relaxed, unguarded. The others had grown a little more accepting of him, but he still mostly kept to himself. Some strange, fluttery part of you felt...honored, that he could let himself look like that in your presence. You felt the corners of your mouth turn up in a little half-smile.

He glanced over at you, and you were too slow to look away. Instead, you let your smile turn a little sheepish, as a kind of apology. Thankfully, he didn’t straighten his shoulders. He didn’t let his face go hard again. He might even have smiled at you, unless the light was playing tricks on you. But before he could say anything to you, the first firework shot into the air and exploded into a dazzling display. 

“What in the nine realms was that?” He sounded alarmed. 

“It’s just fireworks.” You’d never thought to worry about how Loki might react. You’d always thought it was kind of rude to ask people to share personal information, especially when it was about something as potentially traumatic as their experience with explosions. “They’re...um...explosives? And they’re filled with different kinds of elements so that they light up different colored?” It seemed that you had somehow forgotten every single thing you’d ever known about fireworks. 

The look he gave you could have shriveled stone. “I’m familiar with fireworks. Why are they happening?”

Ah. That one you could explain. Sort of. “It’s the fourth of July. Americans chose today to celebrate the day that we first declared independence from Britain. Honestly, it’s kind of stupid, because most of the work didn’t get done until August, and then there was the whole business with the war and a ton of people died. But it’s pretty widely accepted that today is the day that the United States of America was born. Happy birthday, USA.” You lifted your bottle to the sky and, as if to punctuate your statement, another set of fireworks went off. The explosions drew Loki’s attention.

“You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”

You shrugged, knowing perfectly well that he couldn’t see you. “I’m not. It’s just a random day, and I don’t know that we really have much to celebrate right now. But fireworks are pretty, and watching them with friends is a pretty honored tradition.” For a moment, you were back at home with your family, picnicking in an open field and waiting with anticipation for that first gleam of starlight. However, knowing how difficult it would have been to try to describe it all to Loki, you chose to keep silent instead, and merely watched a few more fireworks go off. They did have a threatening edge for you, too: you’d seen almost as many gunfights and explosions as the people tucked safely inside the tower, but...maybe the rest of them didn’t have the same fond memories that you had. Your first memory of an explosion like this was when you were too young to remember much else, sitting on your father’s lap and feeling the vibrations resonate through your tiny body while your beaming mother tried to get you to clap with her.

“But you’re alone.”

“You’re here.” The other Avengers’ traumas were not yours to share with Loki, so you kept them to yourself. Loki remained silent for too long, so you finally dragged your eyes away from the sky to look at him. He was already staring at you, and with an intensity that made you feel pinned to the spot. When he saw that you were looking again, he looked back at the sky, and you could breathe again.

“Are you saying I’m your friend?” There was some trace of disbelief in his voice that made your cheeks burn. You hadn’t spent a lot of time thinking about it, and, no, he wasn’t exactly the kind of friend that you might go to if you wanted to spend a night wearing pajamas and watching stupid movies or something, but…sure, he was a friend. More of a friend than an enemy, anyway. 

“Um.” You forced yourself to draw in a steady breath. “I mean, if you’ll have me.” That disbelief made you realize that he might not think of you in the same way. Yikes. Rather than looking at him, you kept your eyes focused on the lights in the sky. It was safer there. “Do you want a beer? Or a soda? Or I think there’s bottles of water in the cooler too, if you’d prefer.”

He didn’t move for several _long_ moments. You did your best to keep your mind blank, to simply focus on the fireworks and the sounds of the city and the night. You felt a little like you were dealing with a wild animal—no sudden movements, no loud noises, don’t do anything that might piss him off or scare him away. But this was more than that. Something important hinged on this, you just weren’t quite sure what it was.

You forced yourself to take another drink of your beer, feigning nonchalance. Maybe that did the trick. Loki stepped close enough to take something from the cooler beside you, and then walked a little further away, to settle himself on the edge of the roof. You tried not to think about what could happen if one of those nasty gusts of wind was to suddenly tip him over the edge. 

The two of you sat in silence: not really together, but not apart, either. Too many times, you caught yourself watching him instead of the fireworks. The city lights—and the explosions—lit up his silhouette, let your eyes trace the sharp angles of his nose and his cheekbones. You’d never really taken the time to look at him like this, but he was...beautiful. He raised his own bottle to his lips, and you let your eyes linger just long enough to watch the way his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, before you finally looked away.

The finale came too soon, as it always did. You sat forward a bit, eyes glued to the horizon as the explosions swelled into a nonstop volley of sound. You could feel it thumping inside you, gripping your stomach and your heart and everything in between. For a moment, in those quick flashes of light, you felt like a child again, back at your very first fireworks show. Without realizing it, you gripped the arms of your chair. You were smiling so hard that your cheeks ached. This was quintessential summer to you. This was freedom and light and happiness, even in the middle of the hellscape nightmare that your country had come to be. It was magical. 

When the last shell finally exploded, you could just make out faint strains of the national anthem playing from wherever they’d been doing the show. Only then did you sit back again. You finished off your bottle and let it dangle from your fingertips, just barely touching the roof below you. Some small part of you wanted to explain the whole thing to Loki, something about how the explosions probably represented the many battles that it took to establish independence from the British, or how just about every show ended with one explosion after another like the one he’d just seen, or even something about how you knew it was stupid and wasteful and glorified millions of death and, in some way, all the suffering that still happened on a daily basis, but...you didn’t. For a minute, you just let yourself float there, halfway into your uncomplicated memories of childhood. Maybe this wasn’t something that could be explained. Either you got it or you didn’t.

“I think I see, now, why the others didn’t join you up here.” He spoke in a low voice. When he saw you looking at him, he gestured vaguely towards the sky. “For all of that, I mean.”

You nodded. “It’s...not for everybody.” 

He bent down to set down his bottle, and then held his hands out in front of him as though he were studying his palms. “I think I can do something like that.” Sure enough, as you watched, a tiny spark appeared above his hand, and slowly grew until it exploded into that familiar shape. There wasn’t a sound. He grinned at you, and immediately summoned another little spark. And then another. 

Without thinking about it, you rose from your chair and went over to him, near the edge of the roof. As you did, the fireworks began to take on new shapes. One of them exploded into a perfect representation of the “A” on the side of the building and you grinned.

“This is amazing, Loki,” you said. The words felt weak, almost watered-down, but they were the best you could manage. The next firework took on the shapes of your words, spelling each one out before exploding into the next one. You gasped and took a step backwards. Maybe you shouldn’t have been so dumbfounded by this—he was a god from another realm, after all—but you took pleasure in it anyway. The next one formed your name, twinkling with a little flourish and remaining illuminated for just a little longer than it probably should have. You laughed and covered your mouth with your hand. 

“Give me an animal,” he said, and flexed his fingers. “Name something.”

“A bird.” It was the first thing you could think of, but, as soon as you said it, you realized you wanted to see it more than anything. “Can you make a bird? Can you make it fly?”

“You doubt me, darling?” The disappointed look he gave you was somewhat softened by the beaming grin that spread across his face immediately afterwards. Sure enough, the next little spark in his palm took on the shape of a small bird. He held it up, blew gently on it, and it took off on a lilting, curling path around the roof. You watched, rapt, as it circled through the night sky. It came back towards you, you thought maybe to perch back in Loki’s hands, but then it flew between you, out into the sky past the roof. Once it was at a safe distance, it continued to grow, and finally exploded into thousands of glittering golden sparks that hung in the air like stars. But they didn’t fade. 

You could feel how wide your eyes had gone, but it didn’t even occur to you to feel silly about that. “You’re amazing,” you whispered to him. 

You felt a cool hand caress your jawline, and then another. He was cupping your face in his hands, gently guiding your eyes to his face. Were your cheeks growing warm again, or did it just feel like they were, in contrast to his skin? His thumbs brushed your cheekbones. You couldn’t look away. There was a question in his eyes. You weren’t entirely sure what it was, but you swallowed and nodded anyway. A smile ghosted across his face even as he tilted your chin upwards a bit and leaned in to kiss you.

Contrary to what you might have expected, he didn’t seek to dominate you. His lips were insistent, it was true, and when he slid his tongue along your lower lip you opened to him without a second thought, but it all felt...mutual. He tasted dark, like the beer—rich and just barely this side of bitter. You curled your tongue against his, exploring, feeling, and noted with pleasure how his breath came just a little bit faster when you did. You wouldn’t have expected him to be so intent, so purposeful, but he was. 

When he pulled away, it took you more than a moment to find your bearings. You kept your eyes closed, afraid that if you didn’t, he’d see just how hazy you were feeling. When you were yourself again, you glanced up at him. He was already looking at you. Warmth flooded through your body at the look in his eyes. He caressed your cheek one last time before letting his hands drop to his sides.

“You are bewitching,” he murmured, almost as though he were explaining himself. As though he needed to.

“There’s this saying we have, and maybe you’ve already heard it, but it goes something like ‘When he kissed me, I saw fireworks’.” You spoke before you’d really made the decision to do so, but...well, now you might as well go with it. “People use it to talk about...a really nice kiss. A good one.” Heat rose into your face again. He lifted one hand to your waist.

“And did you? See fireworks?” Thankfully, there was no hint of mockery in his voice. He was smiling.

Rather than stand there trying to find the words to say, you just nodded. His smile broke open a little wider and he leaned in to kiss you again. He lifted his free hand and, in a moment or two, you could see a gentle light through your eyelids. You opened your eyes for a moment—and saw one of Loki’s fireworks soaring into the sky above your heads. Just as he pulled your lower lip between his teeth, the firework exploded, showering the two of you with glittering green sparks. You closed your eyes again and took a tiny step closer to him, as his hand slipped beneath the hem of your shirt to rest against your skin.

It was magical.


End file.
